Wicked Family Fights

I'm about to head back home tomorrow, I have a had a great time over here and always love spending time in Germany but I am ready to see my family for Christmas too. My flight leaves at 11:05 from Dusseldorf and I don't get into Omaha till midnight.... :( four hour layover in Chicago

If you aren't a poker player/fan you probably won't be terribly interested in the next part of the blog. If you do happen to be a poker player (as 95% of my non-family readers are probably) then you absolutely need to read on....

If you haven't heard already, the biggest scandal to hit the poker world in some time is going down as we speak. Apparently in the last three days the on-line poker world was taken aback by the 3:12 a.m. post on 2+2 by recent poker kinda-celebrity Brandi Hawbaker (a.k.a. Brandi Rose). I won't go into the details of the post but it involved accusations towards "Captain" Tom Franklin involving theft, manipulation, and sexual assault. You can read the post here:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php Cat=0&Number=8448402&page=0&fpart=1&vc=1

This, needless to say, sparked thousands of responses and reactions across the poker world. Brandi claims that she is still owed somewhere in the range of $9,000 from Mr. Franklin and has been hitting up his friends looking for money (Phil Gordon and Doyle Brunson have both reportedly given her cash) Many of the responses this post has garnered involve accusations about Brandi herself. Several very well respected individuals in the poker world have spoken up with their stories about Brandi Rose. Recent WPT champ Mark Newhouse has been one of the most vocal and his story paints a very different picture of this girl. You can read Mark's story here:

http://www.pocketfives.com/4F749D4A-E243-42BC-80AE-03D5AC4C74BA.aspx

All sorts of rumors are circulating about the validity of Brandi's claims and many smaller stories have been coming up that bring her integrity into question as well. She really claims to be at her "rope's end" and it has been reported several times that she has attempted suicide recently. Not to be out-done, the ever eccentric Dutch Boyd has decided to get in on the mix and has been acting very, very odd over the last week. He claims to have been in an asylum recently and just got out in time for the DBNAPC. Also, an alleged incident between him and Brandi Hawbaker occurred two nights ago in which she claims that he stole her passport and she punched him. The details on that rumor are very unclear. But, it is very clear that something has gotten into Dutch Boyd recently as you can tell from these two videos:

http://www.pokerwire.com/results.php?title=mike-matusow&uid=25034
http://www.pokerwire.com/results.php?title=daniel-negreanu&uid=25022

*you have to wait for the Dutch cameo in both

The biggest controversy of all involves all three of these characters (Cap't Tom, Brandi, Dutch) in a video where Dutch alludes to himself being taken into the desert by Tom and shot in the head, with two graves dug beside him (referring to Brandi in the other?). This video and others can be viewed at:

http://www.pokulator.com/poker-videos/

*player seems to work some times and not others
There are several other videos on this site that show exactly how far off the deep end Dutch appears to have gone. There are reported stories of him acting very bi-polar during the tournament's first two days. He received several penalties for acting out of turn and left the room, only to return carrying a pizza box and saying something about having a hard drive stored in a toilet at The Orleans Casino.

Other links to sites with information:

http://www.bankrollboost.com/brandi-hawbaker.php
-Info on Brandi Hawbaker

http://www.pokerlistings.com/blog/wpt/season5/whats-eating-dutch-boyd
-Dutch's antics at the DBNAPC

http://kickasspoker.blogspot.com/
-General info on the incident

http://www.dutchboyd.com/blog/2006/10/selling-out-never-looked-so-good.html
-Dutch/Brandi banter about her controversial Full Tilt photo

http://people.tribe.net/kallisti
-Brandi's own personal blog where you can get a feel for exactly what goes through her head

This is the most excitement, gossip, controversy the poker world has seen in some time. I'll try to keep up with it but the international travel tomorrow will make it hard for any "Breaking News".